Next day he wrote his letter of thanks to the priest. No doubt it contained some allusion to his project. To the nun he wrote: ‘Seeing you so resolutely averse to what I had proposed, I refrained from justifying my intentions so fully as I could have wished. But should it prove that, even by the few words I ventured to speak, I was able to convince you that this is no mere whim or common fancy, how happy would such news make me.’ On a slip of paper folded small and tucked into the letter he wrote the poem: ‘Though with all my heart I tried to leave it behind me, never for a moment has it left me,—the fair face of that mountain-flower!’ Though she had long passed the zenith of her years the nun could not but be pleased and flattered by the elegance of the note; for it was not only written in an exquisite hand, but was folded with a careless dexterity which she greatly admired. She felt very sorry for him, and would have been glad, had it been in her conscience, to have sent him a more favourable reply. ‘We were delighted,’ she wrote, ‘that being in the neighbourhood you took occasion to pay us a visit. But I fear that when (as I very much hope you will) you come here purposely to visit us, I shall not be able to add anything to what I have said already. As for the poem which you enclose, do not expect her to answer it, for she cannot yet write her “Naniwa Zu”[1] properly, even letter by letter. Let me then answer it for her: “For as long as the cherry-blossoms remain unscattered upon the shore of Onoe where wild storms blow,—so long have you till now been constant!” For my part, I am very uneasy about the matter.’
The priest replied to the same effect. Genji was very much disappointed and after two or three days he sent for Koremitsu and gave him a letter for the nun, telling
- ↑ A song the words of which were used as a first writing lesson.
